Home Improvement

No, not the show with Tim Allen and Jonathan Taylor Thomas (or J.T.T. for those of you who didn't watch tv in the 90's and 2000s)

I'm talking about our  home improvements.

We've been in the house for just under a month now and with family in town two of the weekends, MG out of town one of them, we haven't gotten a TON done, but we've definitely made some dents.

The list so far includes:

-re-hinging the laundry room door: it now closes smoothly without needing a good tug!

-power washing the deck (upper and lower), along with the front stone work, and walkway up to the door.

-trimming the hedges at the front and side of the house

-weed whacking the front yard

-refinishing and staining the deck 

The deck has been the biggest project yet--it took two power washes before we could refinish it. Instead of taking a sander to it, we used a product from Home Depot called "Deck Over" which helps to refinish and repair your deck.

You can't see a TON in this pic, but you can tell it's kind of weathered and worn down...
BEFORE:

Our deck had either not been cleaned and sealed (or anything) in a long time, or ever, so it needed a lot of help. The Deck Over has made the deck MUCH more smooth so we're able to walk on it without the fear of splinters. The first color MG did was more of a red which was too bright, so we quickly went back to Home Depot and picked out a more natural looking brown. The color's really nice now.

Staining the spokes of the railing has been allllll me, and let me tell you, it's been time consuming! After 5 hours, this is what's been accomplished and I've still got some work to do:

But, it's been therapeutic having time outside, and doing work to make our house that much better makes house work suck that much less :)

We also just got an entryway table that we ordered and was delivered/put together yesterday. It's now taking up residence in our entry hallway--waiting for some paint on the walls and some decorative touches to come! (See our table, and my inspiration below):

I'm currently working on painting a gold mirror that MG's mom gave to us to more of a teal color. Hopefully I'll be back with an update on a successful project sometime soon with that! :)

As you can tell, we're plugging away. Not a ton of super noticeable stuff, but with some painting this summer, and some other projects, it's gonna be feeling even more "us" in no time :)